More Swordspoint musing

I re-read Swordspoint this week, just to see if it could clarify anything from The Fall of the Kings. (And also to see if I could make myself notice anything but the romance, the second time around. From my first reading I remembered precisely one line: "First he was rough, and then he was gentle.")

In some ways, reading the two of them so close together was a pleasure -- it was great getting to see Lindley's and Godwin's and Genevieve's literal ancestors, as well as the figurative ancestors of Basil's research. On the other hand, I must say that I have now had my decade's quota of quivering half-mad aristocrats, however lovely. But then, I'm a farmer's granddaughter, and have never claimed to have refined tastes.

Those of you who commented me and said you hated The Fall of the Kings -- I'm curious now. Was it because it cut off so soon after the end of the Theron/Basil story (which I grant you)? or because of a certain sense of Jessica Ex Machina? (which I also grant you, though I felt the ground was so well prepared that I would have been disappointed if she hadn't come back to pick up all the loose ends.)

Or was it because you expected or wanted Theron and Basil to succeed?